THE TALK; To the Moon, Alice?

By Daniel Patterson

Published: November 6, 2005

I was talking to my friend Eric Lau recently as he drove to Santa Monica, Calif., for dinner. He spoke happily of his recent engagement, and less happily of his boredom in running Oswald, a restaurant in Santa Cruz that he has owned for almost a decade. When I suggested that he move to San Francisco -- where I've lived and cooked for 16 years, and where I'm about to open a new place-- he paused for a moment. ''I like San Francisco and all, but I don't know. It's just so sure of what's good -- so self-righteous, yet so conservative about food. It's the tyranny of California cuisine that gets to me.''

I couldn't help drawing him out on this point. ''You mean the tyranny of Chez Panisse?''

He laughed. ''Yes, that's what I meant, I just didn't want to say it.'' And then, raising his voice as if speaking for the record, he added, ''Although, don't get me wrong: I love Chez Panisse.''

And therein lies the problem. We all love Chez Panisse -- maybe too much. Chez Panisse, the progenitor of what we have come to call ''California cuisine,'' has become not just one voice but the only voice speaking out on the values and the mission of that cuisine, particularly in Northern California. Alice Waters, the restaurant's founder and a tireless promoter of fresh and local food, has become to us what Beatrice was to Dante: a model of righteousness and purity, reminding us of our past sins while offering encouragement and inspiration on the path to heaven. The only path to heaven. So deeply embedded is the mythology of Chez Panisse in the DNA of local food culture that it threatens to smother stylistic diversity and extinguish the creativity that it originally sought to spark.

When it opened in 1971, Chez Panisse was as much a symbol of Berkeley's fight against the Establishment as were long hair and bell-bottoms. It was also a clean break from the expensive patrician restaurants of its time, like Ernie's and the Blue Fox, where the chefs used classical French technique to mask the mediocrity of their ingredients. Inspired by the food she ate on a trip to France and the culture that it expressed, Waters sought out local, organic and sustainably raised ingredients, which she used in her reasonably priced, multicourse menus. Chez Panisse was, as she wrote in the introduction to ''Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook,'' ''a place to sit down with my friends and enjoy good food while discussing the politics of the day.'' It soon created a new paradigm: the fine restaurant-cum-neighborhood gathering place. The dishes she served -- like cassoulet, mesclun salads of perfect greens and herbs, and pear tarte Tatin -- were based on regional French cuisine, which derives its emotional power from both a communal understanding of dishes handed down from generation to generation and a strong connection to the land. The agricultural and political climate of the Bay Area was a perfect fit, and Waters's delicious revolution quickly took root and flourished, eventually assimilating into the mainstream. More significantly, Waters wedded the idea of organically grown vegetables and a simple, traditional way of cooking them to the moral imperative of a healthier and more caring world, a place where people spend time together at the table. She connected how we shop, cook and eat to a shared set of underlying beliefs that a friend half-jokingly called ''the Bay Area rendition of Republican family values.'' Over time, Chez Panisse came not only to dominate our local food scene but also to define who we are as a culture.

Today, there are two points on which most people seem to agree. The first is that the majority of the food in the Bay Area is delicious; the second is that it is not very innovative. Top restaurants like Zuni Cafe and Oliveto, run by former Chez Panisse chefs, serve regional Italian food, as do other highly regarded restaurants inspired by the Chez Panisse aesthetic, including Delfina, Quince, A 16 and Pizzaiolo. Even when channeling the home cooking of other countries like Vietnam (the Slanted Door) or Peru (Lim? the chefs stay true to the primacy of simplicity and cultural authenticity. The exceptions are so scarce as to constitute a statistical anomaly; few of the 20 people I spoke to for this article could think of more than two or three examples.

''I feel that, at this point, simplicity is verging on complicity,'' noted Anya von Bremzen, a food writer and cookbook author. ''Considering that San Francisco is one of the great eating capitals of the world, there is a strange lack of ambition among its chefs.'' One senior editor of a national food magazine, who asked not to be named, agreed wholeheartedly: ''Pasta with deep-flavored ragus is always delicious and filling, but none too subtle or delicate. It's the difference between good grub and cuisine.'' The San Francisco-based food writer Patricia Unterman described the local restaurant cooking as ''an elegant and simple way of cooking tasty food,'' at the same time admitting that ''we are definitely missing innovative high-end restaurants.'' The local chef Michael Mina said it more directly: ''Chez Panisse has taken over the style of cooking in the Bay Area.''